The innovative way to build your business online: online PR

When you think about building your online network and improving your search engine rank you think of SEO. But this is not the only way to build an audience online. In fact, more and more small businesses are now turning to PR or public relations to promote their services. PR might sound like someone really expensive, the special benefit of big brands, which afford to spend a lot on marketing campaigns. However, the reality is anyone can afford PR, as long as you know how to implement it.

The link between PR and SEO

These two terms are both abbreviations, but this is not the only link between them. PR can help you boost your SEO efforts easily and naturally. When you start your PR campaign and send press releases, different publications will link to your site. This process supports your guest posting services and helps you build backlinks. Along with them, you will get brand authority and search engines will take this into consideration, increasing your ranking.

In order for your PR strategy to work out well, you need to target the right audience and reach out to the right sites for your business niche. Every single link to your site matters and it can generate traffic, as well as expanding your brand awareness.

Develop a guest posting campaign

When you want to use public relations to improve your SEO you need to start with a guest posting campaign. The steps you need to follow are: find a major site in your niche and contact the owner proposing a guest post. If the idea is accepted, you can write the article, which will be posted on the site, along with a link to your site, usually in the author’s BIO. This is a win-win situation, as the big site gets a high quality blog post and you get visibility. At the same time, online PR helps you develop your network, at the same time you develop your brand awareness.

Using PR platforms

If you can’t or don’t want to write an article, you can join a PR platform, like HARO. These platforms help business owners and journalists connect to each other, in order to share their stories.

Create in-dept, high quality guides

Another smart way to build your ranking is to create in-dept, high quality guides and publish them on your site. Then, contact other site owners in your niche and ask them to link to your guide. Most of the times, you will be successful, if your content is really informative and stands out from the average content out there.

Keep track of mentions

Even if your business is small, people might be talking about it. To keep track of every mentions your business gets you can set up a Google Alert. You will receive a notification each time someone publishes an article about your business. You can reach out to the writers/site owners and thank them for the mention and propose them to link to your site or allow you to guest post on their site.

As you can see, you don’t need a big budget for an effective PR campaign. In fact, you can even do it yourself, saving the money for other projects you might have. Blending PR and SEO is going to help you stay one step ahead of other companies.